A System-of-Systems (SoS) is a collection of dedicated systems which pool resources and capabilities to create a new, more complex system which offers more functionality and performance than simply the sum of the constituent systems.
Developing optimal architectures for large System-of-Systems requires performing trades among many different disciplines. For example, in the missile defense domain the selection of sensors and interceptors, where they are positioned, and their properties such as burn-out velocity, detection range, field of view, or communications latency all have an impact on the overall performance of the system—i.e., how well it defends against incoming threats. The sheer volume of different architectural possibilities makes timely visualization of the design space a significant challenge.
System-of-Systems (SoS) Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization (MDAO) is used to determine which architectural components (systems) have the most impact on the overall performance of the overall system. A system-level model or simulation is constructed and a design of experiment (DoE) performed to vary architectural components or component properties to determine how the overall system performs under a multitude of different configurations. Phoenix Integration's ModelCenter is a standard tool used to perform DoEs. A typical ModelCenter workflow for System of Systems analysis problems involves an analyst executing a DoE, filtering out a set of “interesting” results from among the millions of alternatives, and presenting the filtered responses to a customer for review. Real-time manipulation of data and visualization of results directly from ModelCenter are often impractical for models requiring long execution cycles. As a result, the filtered responses provide a static presentation without any ability to respond in real-time to “what-if” scenarios or questions not considered in the original DoE.
A ballistic missile defense system (an example of a System of Systems) requires elements deployed at various locations and optimized for both optimal homeland defense and for expense. Current methods of simulating such ballistic missile defense systems require long and impractical execution times.
Accordingly, there is a need for a more efficient way to evaluate a System of Systems simulation of a ballistic missile defense system.